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Alison Croggon

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Alison Croggon
Croggon at Perth Festival Writers Week in 2019
Croggon at Perth Festival Writers Week in 2019
Born1962 (1962) (age 62)
Transvaal, South Africa
OccupationNovelist
NationalityAustralian
GenreFantasy, fiction, poetry, libretti

Alison Croggon (born 1962) is a contemporary Australian poet, playwright, fantasy novelist, and librettist.[1]

Life and career

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Born in the Transvaal, South Africa, Alison Croggon's family moved to England before settling in Australia, first in Ballarat then Melbourne.[2] She has worked as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald. Her first volume of poetry, This is the Stone, won the Anne Elder Award and the Mary Gilmore Prize.[3] Her novella Navigatio was highly commended in the 1995 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award.[4] Four novels of the fantasy genre series Pellinor have been published. She also founded and edits the online writing magazine Masthead[5] and writes theatre criticism.[6]

Croggon has also written libretti for Michael Smetanin's operas Gauguin: A Synthetic Life and The Burrow, which premiered respectively at the 2000 Melbourne Festival and Perth Festival, produced by ChamberMade.[7][8] In 2014, Iain Grandage (composer) and Croggon (librettist) collaborated to present The Riders, based on Tim Winton's novel The Riders. Its world premiere was in Melbourne.[9]

Other poems by Croggon have been set to music by Smetanin, Christine McCombe, Margaret Legge-Wilkinson, and Andrée Greenwell.[10] Her plays have been produced by the Melbourne Festival, The Red Shed Company (Adelaide) and ABC Radio.

As of 2023, she is arts editor at The Saturday Paper.[11]

She currently lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband Daniel Keene and three children.[12]

Awards and nominations

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  • 2009 Pascall Prize for Critical Writing for her blog Theatre Notes.[1]
  • 2023 shortlisted for NSW Premier's Translation Prize for Duino Elegies.[13]

Works

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Poetry

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  • This is the Stone. Penguin Books Australia. 1991. ISBN 0-14-058666-0.
  • The Blue Gate. Black Pepper Press. 1997. ISBN 1-876044-18-7.
  • Mnemosyne. Wild Honey Press. 2001. ISBN 1-903090-31-8.
  • Attempts at Being. Salt Publishing. 2002. ISBN 1-876857-42-0. excerpt
  • The Common Flesh: Poems 1980–2002. Arc. 2003. ISBN 1-900072-72-6.
  • November Burning. Vagabond. 2004.
  • Ash. Cusp Books.
  • New and Selected Poems 1991–2017. Newport Street Books. 2017.
  • Theatre. Salt Publishing.

Memoir

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Novella

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Fantasy novels

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The Books of Pellinor

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Standalone

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Libretti

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  • (1995) The Burrow, ISBN 0-949697-25-7
  • (2000) Gauguin (a synthetic life)
  • (2014) The Riders

Plays

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  • Monologues for an Apocalypse (2000)
  • Blue (2001)
  • My Dearworthy Darling (2019)

References

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  1. ^ a b "Alison Croggon". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  2. ^ "Croggon, Alison (1962–)". Australian Poetry Library. Archived from the original on 22 December 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  3. ^ "Alison Croggon". Chicago Review. 14 January 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  4. ^ "Navigatio | AustLit: Discover Australian Stories". www.austlit.edu.au. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  5. ^ "Masthead". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  6. ^ "Alison Croggon". AusStage. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  7. ^ "Artist Profile: Alison Croggon". OzArts Online. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 17 January 2007.
  8. ^ "Alison Croggon – 25 years interview". Chamber Made Opera. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  9. ^ "The Riders". Victorian Opera. 29 October 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  10. ^ "Alison Croggon". Australian Music Centre. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  11. ^ "Alison Croggon". The Saturday Paper. 1 May 2019. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  12. ^ "Croggon, Alison 1962–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  13. ^ "Duino Elegies". State Library of NSW. 8 February 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
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